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Its a GREAT tool... and very nice in case of emergency! I have a copy in my "toolkit".
Too bad *most* of that is not legal. Well... unless you have a legit copy of all the tools on there.

Check out Bart's PE to make yourself a "legal" CD. all you need is a Windows XP install disk. Here is the link to Bart's PE: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Check out the site because you can also install plugins onto the CD, such as McAfee AVERT stinger and a whole bunch of other stuff. All of which are legal or legalish anyway. Here's a link to the Bart's PE plugin section : http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#plugins

There's your "legal" collection of tools. I'm surprised a Bart's PE disk wasn't the first thing recommended. Hell, you can start up a copy of Bart's PE on the infected laptop, set up a C drive file share and then scan it with your regular tools on your laptop. You have to be creative, since you don't really want to chop open your buddies laptop to pull the drive out. You look at the guts of a laptop wrong and it breaks, nonetheless ripping hard drives out.

I've had a really bad time doing that with laptops, of course it doesn't help I haven't worked on anything that's even remotely recent. I also didn't mean literally chop it up, it was more of a synonym for surgery.

The most recent laptop i've ever worked on came from the factory with Windows 98 on it, and not SE either.

I still say skip taking the laptop apart, just boot up with the CD share the drive, copy what you need and your done. Here's where USB hard drives come in handy too. Make sure the environment's safe and then just plug her in and copy away.

I definately will. I got my hands on a good one, awhile ago, it was called MINI-PE X2 or something like that. I nabbed it off of Pirate Bay and it's the cat's meow. Thats been my bread and butter windows rescue CD. I'll have to check yours out.

Hey guys. Thanks much for all the good info you're posting here. Sorry for not keeping up, but I had a test today and one tomorrow that I have been studying for and still have to study for. I scanned through a the posts but haven't had a chance to really read them all, but as soon as I get done with this test I will get back on it.

Although, if you want to try and clean the PC, then there is a sequence of doing this which requires patience, and IMO is a good way to learn about the types of Crapware that is out there.

Yeah, that was the main reason I wanted to try and do this, as well as seeing if was possible to take the pc back, because it is helping me learn in the process. Unfortunately I probably wouldn't have the time to go through and get every single thing off of there on that pc cause they want it for business, BUT, as I said originally, they got that other laptop that I looked at before I thought he wanted looked at, and that one is just as bad, actually I think it's worse, than the one they want for the bar

I swung by their house last night and let them know it was looking like and that you guys were saying reformatt, and ya, I told them about the thread I started here and how you guys know your sh!t and all, so they will go with whatever I tell them.